Launched on February 17, 1996, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR)
mission is to be the first of NASA's Discovery missions, a series of
small-scale spacecraft designed to proceed from development to flight
in under three years for a cost of less
than $150 million. The spacecraft will be equipped with an X-ray/gamma ray
spectrometer, a near infrared imaging spectrograph, a multispectral camera
fitted with a CCD imaging detector, a laser altimeter, and a magnetometer. A
radio science experiment will also be performed using the NEAR tracking
system to estimate the gravity field of the asteroid.

The ultimate goal of the mission is to rendezvous with and achieve orbit
around the near Earth asteroid 433 Eros in February, 1999, and study the asteroid for
approximately one year. Eros is an S-class asteroid about 14 x 14 x 40 kilometers in
size. Studies will be made of the asteroid's size, shape, mass, magnetic
field, composition, and surface and internal structure. Periapsis of the
orbit will be as low as 24 kilometers above the surface of the asteroid.